Settable lugs for climbing racks

ABSTRACT

Warehouse racks are commonly provided which include upright posts of sheet metal having numerous slots in their faces and sides for the reception of longitudinally extending and transversely extending shelf supporting bars. The shelves may be located at various heights up to 8 feet or even more for the temporary storage of merchandise. Fork lifts are generally used for placing merchandise on the higher storage shelves and for transferring the merchandise from higher to lower shelves. Merchandise is generally withdrawn from the lower shelves for filling orders with the aid of manually propelled or automotive vehicles. There are many instances, however, where merchandise, particularly on the lower shelves, could be more conveniently withdrawn if provision is made for enabling a stock clerk to climb the rack, at least, partway, and manually transfer merchandise, either directly or through an associate, from the rack to such a vehicle. To this end, the present invention provides lugs which can be transferably applied to the racks to serve usefully as steps and/or hand-holds as convenience may require. The lugs provided are desirably sufficiently numerous to avoid the need for frequent transference of lugs from one location to another.

United States Patent 1 1 Georgianna 1111 3,833,090 Sept. 3, 1974 SETTABLE LUGS FOR CLIMBING RACKS [76] Inventor: Rodney A. Georgianna, 320 Bridge,

Ashland, Oreg. 97520 [22] Filed: Aug. 29, 1973 [21] Appl. No.: 392,435

Primary ExaminerReinaldo P. Machado Attorney, Agent, or FirmClarence M. Crews [57] ABSTRACT Warehouse racks are commonly provided which include upright posts of sheet metal having numerous slots in their faces and sides for the reception of longitudinally extending and transversely extending shelf supporting bars. The shelves may be located at various heights up to 8 feet or even more for the temporary storage of merchandise. Fork lifts are generally used for placing merchandise on the higher storage shelves and for transferring the merchandise from higher to lower shelves. Merchandise is generally withdrawn from the lower shelves for filling orders with the aid of manually propelled or automotive vehicles. There are many instances, however, where merchandise, particularly on the lower shelves, could be more conveniently withdrawn if provision is made for enabling a stock clerk to climb the rack, at least, partway, and manually transfer merchandise, either directly or through an associate, from the rack to such a vehicle. To this end, the present invention provides lugs which can be transferably applied to the racks to serve usefully as steps and/or hand-holds as convenience may require. The lugs provided are desirably sufficiently numerous to avoid the need for frequent transference of lugs from one'location to another.

3 Claims, 6 Drawing Figures SETTABLE LUGS FOR CLIMBING RACKS This invention relates to rack climbing lugs adapted to be removably applied to existing warehouse storage racks, without alteration of the latter, for enabling a stock clerk to put in place or to withdraw stock which would otherwise have required the use of a ladder or a truck-borne elevator, such as a fork-lift truck.

In the warehouse storage of groceries, for example, a truckload of a given kind of merchandise will come in and be placed in an assigned, elevated position with the aid of a fork-lift truck, and it will be transferred to lower shelves as required through the use of a fork-lift truck.

When an order comes in from a local store, it will generally cover a variety of items in varying amounts, some on the lowermost shelves and some on adjacent low shelves. Under conventional practice, however, depletion of low shelf supplies can develop as to some commodities to an extent that renders them essentially unavailable.

The rack, however, inludes metallic posts which have sets of slots in their faces at uniform, frequent intervals for use in providing shelf support. Although these slots occur at frequent intervals, illustratively at 3 inch intervals, most of them are unused for shelf support.

I have accordingly proposed that novel, rack climbing lugs be provided, each adapted for continual or transferable attachment through selected slots, and that they be made available to a clerk equipped with a cart for use in collecting items. This proposal has been put into use with surprisingly good results. Sometimes an order can be completely filled from the floor. Not infrequently, however, required items are inaccessible from the floor. This has involved inconvenience and delay. At other times an order may be divided into two parts, one part to be collected through the use of an automotive vehicle having a fork-lift type of tailgate, and the other part to be collected through the use of my lugs and a simple, manually operated or automotive cart.

Other objects and advantages will hereinafter appear.

In the drawing forming part of this specification.

FIG. 1 is a perspective view on a reduced scale of a practical and advantageous form of lug characteristic of the invention;

FIG. 2 is a fragmentary view in side elevation on the same scale as FIG. 1, which shows in full line a lug in the course of being applied to a rack, and in dotted line the same lug in applied position;

FIG. 3 is a perspective fragmentary view on a smaller scale than FIG. 2, showing the lug of FIGS. 1 and 2 in applied position;

FIG. 4 is a fragmentary view in rear elevation on a larger scale than FIG. 1, of the rack and lug of FIGS. 1 to 3;

FIG. 5 is a plan view, on the scale of FIG. 4, of a modified form of lug designed to afford more secure footing; and

FIG. 6 is a view in sectional elevation, taken on the line 66 of FIG. 5, looking in the direction of the arrows.

A rack 10, of the kind to which my invention is applied, is composed in part of essentially three-sided, sheet metal legs 12 which include slots or other perforations 14, and slots or other perforations 16, both designed for use in the supporting of shelves (not shown). The rack legs may be of any desired and convenient height, being generally 8 feet or more in height.

Although the space heightwise between shelves will generally be of the order of a foot or two, the slots 14 and the slots 16 are generally provided at frequent levels, say, at 3 inch intervals. There are, therefore, many of the paired slots 14 which normally go to waste and which are therefore available for use with my novel lugs A lug 18 is desirably made as a white metal casting, being composed of aluminum or of a magnesiumaluminum alloy for lightness. Alternatively, the lugs may be composed of a suitably strong plastic material. The preferred and recommended practice is to provide the lugs in sufficient numbers so that every required space is permanently filled. In unusual circumstances,

however, lugs may be readily borrowed for emergency use.

The lug 18 of FIGS. 1 to 4 includes a relatively massive four-sided loop portion 20 of generally rectangular form and relatively light, upstanding fingers 22 which are passed through adjacent slots 14. The fingers, which diverge upwardly as shown, are widely enough spaced at their upper ends to be inserted through the divergent upper ends of the slots 14 in a slanted attitude and then to be depressed and swung to vertical attitudes in which their forward faces bear stably against a rear face of the leg 12. As best seen in FIG. 4 the inserted fingers extend above the upper ends of the slots 14. The rear face of the loop bears stably against the front face of the leg 12. The stability of the lug setting is further enhanced by the provision of shallow slots 23 in the undersides of the fingers adjacent to the loop. Each of these slots receives and snugly fits the rack leg material. The lugs are caused by gravity naturally to occupy and retain positions like that shown in FIG. 3.

The loop portions of the illustrative lugs may desirably measure substantially 3% inches from side to side and 3 inches from front to rear, while the fingers may desirably extend for about an inch and a quarter above the tread surface of the loop. The rear wall of the loop is coterminous with the other walls of the loop at its lower end, but extends about a quarter inch above the flat tread surface formed by the other three walls at its upper end. The dimensions referred to are not restrictive. They may be increased or diminished within practical limits to meet particular rack requirements.

As previously noted, the lugs may be provided on posts at all points at which they will normally be required throughout the warehouse for use by any stock clerk. The upper or tread surface of the loop portion 20 of a lug may be smooth as shown in FIGS. 1, 2 and 3 to serve as a foot support. The loopportion is also adapted to provide a convenient hand-hold. It is not contemplated that a stock clerk will make a practice of utilizing these lugs to climb to the top shelf of a tall rack, but in case of necessity he could do so.

While each installed lug naturally and dependably occupies the desired, stable position described, there is nothing to interfere with, or to impede, withdrawal of a lug from a position in which it has been used. The lug is lifted slightly, then tilted upward and pulled outward.

corresponding parts with the postscript a added in each instance. The tread surface of lug 18a is made irregular, however, for guarding against skidding of a clearks shoe. As shown, the entire tread surface of the lug is formed with a checker-board design, being divided by transversely extending depressed lines 26 and front to rear depressed lines 28 into black squares 24, which are raised, and white squares 25, which are depressed. Skidproofing of the tread surface could take other forms.

The invention is not, of course, confined to use with racks having the forms of slots illustrated herein, nor to lugs of the precise form shown. The loop portion of a lug will always be adapted and arranged to extend horizontally, or essentially so, and to serve either as a foot support or hand-hold, but the upwardly extending finger portions will be modified according to the shape and disposition of unused slots or other openings in the rack posts to enable them to function as herein described.

I have described what I believe to be the best embodiment of my invention. What I desire to cover by letters patent, however, is set forth in the appended claims.

I claim:

1. An integral, safety'climbing lug adapted for selfmaintaining, stable but readily removable application to the front wall of an upstanding sheet metal storage rack post, in which wall pairs of complementary, laterally spaced, upstanding slots are present at numerous common levels, said lug comprising, in combination,

a. a horizontal loop of greater width than depth from front to rear, the side and front portions of which loop form a combined tread and hand-hold, and the rear portion of which provides a flat vertical rear surface of substantial height and of substantially greater width than height, and

b. a pair of laterally spaced, lug supporting and stabilizing finger portions which have forward faces that are offset rearwardly from the rear wall of the loop by substantially the thickness of the post wall, extend upward from the rear wall of the loop for substantial distances beyond the upper surface of the combined thread and hand-hold, and have notches in their lower ends adjacent to the rear wall of the loop, which correspond in width to the thickness of the post wall, the finger portions being constructed and arranged to be inserted from front to rear through the .respective rack post slots of an associated pair and to bear stably at their upper free ends against extensive rear surface portions of said rack post wall which lie above the upper ends of the slots through which the fingers have been inserted, and

the loop portion being constructed and arranged,

when the finger portions have been so inserted, to have its rear face bear extensively and stably against a fornt surface portion of the rack post.

2. A lug as set forth in claim 1 in which the loop portion of the applied lug normally extends horizontally and is relatively massive and the finger portions are relatively light and are urged upward and forward by the weight of the loop portion.

3. A lug as set forth in claim 1 in which the rear face of the loop is constructed and arranged to bear against the front surface of the rack post both above and below the horizontal plane in which lug support is provided by the notched lower ends of the fingers, and laterally both between and beyond the fingers.

UNITED STATES PATENT. OFFICE CERTIFICATE OF CORRECTION Patent No. 5835O9O Dated September 5, 97 i- Inventor(s) Rodney orgianna.

It is certified that error appears in the above-identified patent and that said Letters Patent are hereby corrected as shown below:

Column line 8, "thread" should read tread line 22, "fornt" should read front Signed and sealed this 3rd day of December 1974.

(SEAL) Attest:

McCOY M. GIBSON R. Y o. MARSHALL DANN Attest'ing Officer Commissioner of Patents FORM PC4050 v 7 uscoMM-oc wan-Pee I us. covenan mmnus OFFICE; 5 

1. An integral, safety climbing lug adapted for selfmaintaining, stable but readily removable application to the front wall of an upstanding sheet metal storage rack post, in which wall pairs of complementary, laterally spaced, upstanding slots are present at numerous common levels, said lug comprising, in combination, a. a horizontal loop of greater width than depth from front to rear, the side and front portions of which loop form a combined tread and hand-hold, and the rear portion of which provides a flat vertical rear surface of substantial height and of substantially greater width than height, and b. a pair of laterally spaced, lug supporting and stabilizing finger portions which have forward faces that are offset rearwardly from the rear wall of the loop by substantially the thickness of the post wall, extend upward from the rear wall of the loop for substantial distances beyond the upper surface of the combined thread and hand-hold, and have notches in their lower ends adjacent to the rear wall of the loop, which correspond in width to the thickness of the post wall, the finger portions being constructed and arranged to be inserted from front to rear through the respective rack post slots of an associated pair and to bear stably at their upper free ends against extensive rear surface portions of said rack post wall which lie above the upper ends of the slots through which the fingers have been inserted, and the loop portion being constructed and arranged, when the finger portions have been so inserted, to have its rear face bear extensively and stably against a fornt surface portion of the rack post.
 2. A lug as set forth in claim 1 in which the loop portion of the applied lug normally extends horizontally and is relatively massive and the finger portions are relatively light and are urged upward and forward by the weight of the loop portion.
 3. A lug as set forth in claim 1 in which the rear face of the loop is constructed and arranged to bear against the front surface of the rack post both above and below the horizontal plane in which lug support is provided by the notched lower ends of the fingers, and laterally both between and beyond the fingers. 